


Commuted Sentence

by pauraque



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-30
Updated: 2004-03-30
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:04:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauraque/pseuds/pauraque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The train can't run fast enough for Hermione.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Commuted Sentence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maidenjedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/gifts).



> An icon ficlet for Maidenjedi. The prompt was a picture of the Hogwarts Express with the caption "I hate long commutes".

The train can't run fast enough for Hermione. She stares out the window at the jet plane tracks— cotton-white bridges you could walk on, she's sure, if you knew the right spell. Telephone posts — she closes her eyes against them. There's nothing she wants there.

Some people fall asleep on the train, but Hermione never does. Almost there, she says to herself, and squeezes her eyes shut tighter.

She's afraid of what might happen if she falls asleep now. She's afraid she'll wake up and it will be her 11th birthday, and none of the horrid girls from school will turn up for the party. She'll tell herself it was her mother who made her invite them all anyway, but the hurt will flood up hot beneath her eyes and in her cheeks.

And when she goes out to the wilting crocuses in the back yard to cry, this time there won't be an ancient owl sitting on the fencepost and staring at her with huge, accusatory eyes.

And so she'll cry, and the next day her father will drive her to school and she'll slump down in the upholstery and maybe today the girls will leave her alone — big white straight grins and ribbons in their hair, and words words words slithering out between their teeth. But they'll never leave her alone. Not today, not tomorrow, not the next day or the next.

Hermione opens her eyes. The train is clacking and rattling over the long causeway now, and Neville is nattering on about how it really does seem rickety, don't you think? Hermione doesn't answer. She looks out the window, and the hills are nothing but brown and green, and the sky trackless blue.

A tense smile pulls at the corners of her mouth.


End file.
